I tried living in a share house | Kamikita House, a space where events naturally occur

Introduction
Hearing rumors about an interesting share house

It seems that there is an interesting share house.
In October last year, such a story was conveyed to nomlog editorial department. Even though it's a large share house, the people who live there are all friendly, they can freely plan what they want to do, and there are always events every day.

Close-up, 2 weeks at Kamikita House

For us space planners who make a living from planning, what kind of place is a space where conversations and events spontaneously occur? What is the state of the community? When I started to get interested in it, a lot of things I wanted to know came out and I couldn't stop.
This time, I had a special opportunity to move into your share house for two weeks and do fieldwork to explore the relationship between space and community. I will report on the space where conversations and events naturally occur, which I saw during the experience!

Kamikita House Share House Information

Name: Kamikita House
Location: Shimotakaido, Suginami Ward. A 5-minute walk from Kamikitazawa Station on the Keio Line.
Number of residents: 40 people (at the time of trial move-in), maximum 326 people

Room: 3 types of single, double, and 6-person rooms (*shared rooms are under operation with a limit on the number of people)

Taken on the first day of fieldwork. The single room I moved into

Room facilities:

Mini refrigerator (about the same size as the one in the hotel room), air conditioner, bed, desk and chair, shower, toilet with washlet, closet

Private rooms are fully equipped. I was grateful that the toilet and shower were completed in a private room.

Shared facilities:

7 kitchens (6 IH units, 7 large kitchens with 2 sinks)
Living room and lounge (TV, table tennis table, kotatsu recently added)
Theater room (Lie down on a yogibo to watch images from a large projector)
Working space (there were four meeting rooms with large desks, whiteboards, and private rooms)

Sister facility HAKUSAN HOUSE: Shared house for international students

As a big brother of KAMIKITA HOUSE, there is HAKUSAN HOUSE operated by the same company in Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku.
80% of the residents of HAKUSAN HOUSE, which is the first property, are students mainly from Europe and the United States, and there is a high demand for international students. Open to. However, due to the influence of the corona crisis, there are no international students coming to Japan, so there are currently about 40 residents.
The number of people is small compared to the capacity, but as a share house, even 40 people is a large scale! I liked this large number of people because it was like a "salad bowl for various people" (details will be described later).

Now, I would like to report on the relationship between the space of Kamikita House and the community, which I felt after actually moving in!

1: Students who are stimulating each other x working people

First of all, the attributes of the residents were diverse. As a composition, half students and half working people. There were both undergraduate and graduate students, and there was a wide variety of working people, from office workers like me to freelancers and complete part-timers.
What was interesting was that the students and working people were able to spend time in the same space without discrimination, and they gave each other good stimulation. After graduating from university, I had fewer opportunities to talk with students, but when I did talk to them again, I was inspired by their energetic and action-oriented way of thinking.

There are people with various titles. colorful salad bowl

I personally liked the atmosphere of mutual respect for each other's work and efforts.

*Kamikita House will be exclusively for students from the summer of 2022. Personally, I am very sorry, but please be careful.

2: An exquisite sense of distance that brings the world into the home

A large number of people live their lives in their own style and do not eat every meal together. There was a very exquisite human relationship where everyone was a family member and everyone was a stranger.
I felt that this sense of distance played an important role in forming a good community.
Many residents of Kamikita House are free-spirited. People who like table tennis and open a table tennis cafe in Asakusa, people who love traveling and develop map apps, etc. No one will stop you no matter what you do. Other people don't interfere.
However, when it comes to service operation, everyone will support us with all their might. Because we live in the same house and know what kind of efforts we have made.

The interpersonal relationships at Kamikita House are an ideal balance.

This sense of distance is very comfortable for me personally, and I felt that this is the root of the "share house where everyone gets along" that I heard about at the beginning.

A day for new residents to introduce themselves. There are three new faces at this time, including myself.

 

3: Good sense of speed to "do" what you like

The residents of Kamikita House have a dedicated community manager who regularly plans events and manages them.
There are two community managers, and by planning and managing events, interaction between residents has become more active.

Support the event! Active community activities

However, what I felt was the most important thing about their efforts was that they provided support in their daily lives to boost people's motivation more fundamentally.
When I actually asked the community manager about it, he first said, "That's good!" and "Let's try it." It seems that you are conscious of that. After that, we will proceed with coordination with the share house management company. There was a person who didn't miss the ideas that came out and pushed them into action.

As an example, there is a thing called "set dining room".
A university student who was the youngest of the residents used his culinary skills to open a cafeteria for the people living in the share house in order to fix the disheveled eating habits of the older residents.

A state of the "separate dining room". Fees are for materials only (electronic remittance is also OK)

In addition, various activities such as movie viewing parties, table tennis tournaments, early morning yoga, etc., were planned and implemented spontaneously.
It seems that it will be useful for organizational management at the company that the community will be so active with the support of the community manager to accelerate the conscious "want to do".

4: The physical space configuration of Kamikita House is...

Kamikita House is a good scheme and a good community. However, I felt that more support from the spatial side was necessary.

For example, many shared spaces were not used as intended.

External staircase connecting kitchen and living room

Perhaps because of the floor space, the kitchen and living room are separated and arranged alternately. There is an outside staircase connecting the two, but no one is using it. I think it was cold in winter, but as a result, only the kitchen floor was used for meals, and the living room did not function as a place for people to gather.

There were also other spaces on the first floor, such as the lounge and working space, aimed at so-called "Waigaya", but people did not gather there on a daily basis, and there were always people around the kitchen. in a state of gathering.

How can share houses become more interesting?

While reaffirming the great gravity that food has, for example, it's fun to just change the taste of the interior depending on the floor, and if you want to do something more project-like, you can enjoy it by food such as noodles, sweets, alcohol, etc. Create a dedicated floor. Create a potluck library space. I thought that if we had a more diverse repertoire of places to hang out, our hobbies and tastes would mix, and our conversations and connections with other people would be more interesting.

 

in conclusion
Thank you and gratitude to Kamikita House

This time, by jumping into a share house, I learned and experienced a scheme that can be used to create a community not only in a share house, but also in a company organization or a municipality facility. It was a dense two weeks that made me think a lot about the fun of connecting people and what the space can do to make that happen.

Last but not least, I would like to thank everyone at Kamikita House for their cooperation.